Speech events: Insights into the society

It just occurred to me how dynamic speech events can be. Since a speech event is dependent on the culture, it implies that there can be many variations for one speech event.

For example, we discussed in class the act sequence of a Japanese marriage proposal.

Man: Holds woman's hand (optional), looks at woman, and says "Please marry me".
Woman: Stands with head down. Silence.

A Singaporean one would probably go like this:



Man: Kneels down with flowers and/or ring in hand, looks at woman, and says "Will you marry me?".
Woman: Says "Yes I will".

The differences in the marriage proposals give us hints on the societal views and norms of the two countries. We see that in the Singaporean version, the woman is given more autonomy with the presentation of a question that required an answer. The act of kneeling down also showed that the women here are on an equal footing with men.

I guess this is what 'be aware of your surroundings' mean. Watch the events around you, listen to them, and learn about the environment you're living in.